BBM iOS App Will Not Be Available for iPad at Launch

BlackBerry has revealed that BBM for iOS will not be available on the iPad at launch, reports TrustReviews. The company previously announced that BBM would be coming this summer.

Leaving iPad mini and iPad 4 users out in the cold, the iOS BBM app will launch for iPhone owners only, with the smartphone centric application also set to miss out on Android tablets such as the Google Nexus 7, with the company targeting smartphone users first.

“At this point it is iOS and Android, and that’s iOS phones running iOS 6 and higher,” Vivek Bhardwaj, Head of the BlackBerry Software Portfolio said.

“Smartphone is our real focus and again it comes back to what BBM is. If you look BBM and the engagement and the activity, it’s because it is mobile, because people are on the go,” added Bhardwaj. “When you start looking at tablets, computers and other screens, the usage model changes and behaviour changes. For us right now the absolute focus is getting BBM onto smartphones.”

Bbry always seems to misunderstand the potential user. The tablet business is huge and growing. I like that they are cross platform now on most mobile users. But I'm not sure how they monetize this.
It's sad for bbry. Waterloo is too far away from reality and it seems the k/w bubble is shielding them from what is really going on in the real world.

It's bad for Blackberry to expand this because they officially lose all of their market value. Their "unique" feature will now be mainstreamed to other devices, so what's the appeal, Enterprise? Samsung has Knox, Apple has iOS 6 security, Blackberry is losing ground fast. At least we'll get a useful cross-platform tool and will no longer have to rely on Whatsapp and the like. Implement video calling and it'll even knock Skype and Viber away.